THE ROLE OF CRITICAL APPROACHES AND HUMAN SCIENCES IN ORIENTING CULTURE AND COGNITION IN HUMAN SOCIETIES (A STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL AND COGNITIVE SHIFTS)

This study aims at presenting a critical reading of the human sciences approaches during the last half of the twentieth century, as the human sciences plays an active role in the formation of societies cultures, and the critical process is closely related to the this field, subsequently, they are complementary. The critical process positively contributes to the realization of multiple readings and the cognitive and cultural enrichment. The twentieth century has witnessed cultural and cognitive shifts that led to the emergence of many critical trends which carries human studies from the focus on external contexts that produced the text to the focus on the cultural systems implied beyond and inside the text. We believe that human sciences have an effective role in orienting societies' culture towards the intellectual advancement and the civilizational progress. Therefore, this study seeks to highlight this important feature of modern and contemporary humanities. The study also attempts to link the human sciences with the digital transitions that the contemporary world has known, especially at the dawn of the third millennium, whereby television, computer, Internet, smart phones and so on have been invented. These tools have made qualitative leap and radical shift in critical studies and humanities. Cultural studies has dominated the field of humanities. Thus, literary and critical interest has shifted from the elite’s environment to the popular mass culture which represents the vast majority in human societies. Hence, the present study explores the mentioned shifts following basically the descriptive approach as well as the historical approach when necessary in order to achieve the research objectives. On the basis of what have been mentioned, the following questions are raised: What is meant by human sciences? What is its relationship to the positive construction of human culture? What is the relationship between the critical approaches and the humanities? How their integration can be realized? What are the proposed means to make the humanities achieve intellectual moderation and cultural balance? Finally, what are the prospects for contemporary human sciences in light of the computational dominance and the digitization?.

Feminism and the Position of Women

Feminism in its modern meanings attests to a movement for change in the social, economic and legal position of women. In the Romantic period, no such movement existed. There were, however, individual women whose voices, separately and together, suggest the existence of a commonality of feeling around the intellectual advancement of the female sex. This article examines writing by women on female education and sexual and social reform, focussing on the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, Mary Robinson, and Mary Lamb. It connects political writing and educational treatises to the novels and essays written by these women and it reflects on the shared concerns from which modern feminism emerged.

Interaksi Dan Pertukaran Intelek Saintis Agronomi Dan Doktor Perubatan Di Al-Andalus (Interactions and Intellectual Exchanges of Agronomists and Physicians in al-Andalus)

The zenith of Islamic civilization in al-Andalus is often studied and discussed from the historical point of view, its’ intellectual contributions and scientific achievements of the civilization. Yet there are still many new aspects that to be explored on how intellectual advancement were achieved as well as the key processes involved in shaping great achievements of Islamic Spain. Hence, this paper aims to make a preliminary study on interactions and intellectual exchanges of agronomists and physicians in advancing sciences of agronomy and medicine. This study is a qualitative - historical methodology research, applying library survey methods, document analysis and field research. The study found that interactions and intellectual exchanges were flourishing through discussions, laboratory and field research, scientific group collaborations, diplomatic co-operation, meetings, presentations, lectures, seminars, mentor-mentee programs and writings in Cordoba and al-Andalus's main cities such as Seville, Toledo and Granada. Active and vibrant intellectual network and interactions among al-Andalus scholars in various scientific activities played important roles and brought significant impact towards advancement of science during glorious era of al-Andalus.

"This land is my land" : authority and landscape in American women's nonfiction, 1843-1903

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] "Thus, the arc of my dissertationâ€"from a landscape that is local and familiar to one that is vast and often incomprehensibleâ€"suggests that women confront a range of different spaces in their nonfiction, and that the work of confronting these landscapes is performed to do something more than simply record or observe. As these brief chapter overviews illustrate, each chapter highlights questions and issues that are relevant to women’s various lived experiences in nineteenth-century Americaâ€"issues such as opportunities for intellectual advancement, spiritual growth, relationships with nature, belonging, and the challenges of work are represented in these texts, although these are only some of the complicated matters raised across this literature. The writers in this study demonstrate that landscape is a central force in their lives, as it is through the act of writing about their immediate landscapes that they access and investigate what matters most to them."--Page 12.

From an emerging market to a multifaceted urban society: Urban China studies

China is undergoing an urban revolution. In 2011 more than half of the total population resided in cities and towns for the first time in history. Over the last two decades urban China scholars have actively engaged in dialogues with urbanists from different disciplines and different urban contexts. In consequence, urban China studies have embarked on a trail of rapid diversification and proliferation, moving beyond the topics of urbanisation and urban expansion to address a variety of issues echoing the latest developments in the Chinese city. Overall, urban China studies are witnessing a transition from a focus on economic development and spatial changes, to diverse social groups and the multifaceted experiences of living in rapidly changing cities. This virtual special issue (VSI) summarises the progress of urban China studies since the Economic Reform was launched in the 1970s. On the one hand, it delineates a broad picture of intellectual advancement and knowledge production in the field of urban China research. On the other hand, it identifies some emerging new themes that have not been well represented but are of potentially great significance in the comprehension and theorisation of Chinese urbanism. A total of 24 articles published in Urban Studies have been selected to represent, albeit in necessarily circumscribed form, the scope of urban China studies in this journal. They are distributed across four well-established themes: (1) globalisation and the making of global cities; (2) land and housing development; (3) urban poverty and socio-spatial inequality; (4) rural migrants and their urban experiences. We also highlight three emerging frontiers: (1) urban fragmentation, enclaves and public space; (2) consumption, middle class aestheticisation and urban culture; (3) the right to the city and urban activism. The editorial concludes by identifying some key gaps in the extant literature and some potentially productive future directions.

Jewish Women in Enlightenment Berlin

The encounter of Jews with the Enlightenment has so far been considered almost entirely from a masculine perspective. In shifting the focus to a group of educated Jewish women in Berlin, this book makes an important contribution to German-Jewish history as well as to gender studies. The study of these women's letters, literary activities, and social life reveals them as cultivated members of the European public. Their correspondence allowed them not only to demonstrate their intellectual talents but also to widen their horizons and acquire knowledge — a key concern of women seeking empowerment. The descriptions of their involvement in the public sphere, a key feature of Enlightenment culture, offer important new insights: social gatherings in their homes served the purpose of intellectual advancement, while the newly fashionable spas gave them the opportunity to expand their contacts with men as well as with other women, and with non-Jews as well as Jews, right across Europe. As avid readers and critical writers, these women reflected the secular world view that was then beginning to spread among Jews. Imbued with enlightened ideas and values and a new feminine awareness, they began to seek independence and freedom, to the extent of challenging the institution of marriage and traditional family frameworks. A final chapter discusses the relationship of the women to Judaism and to religion in general, including their attitude to conversion to Christianity — the route that so many ultimately took.

URGENSI PENGATURAN PERBUKUAN NASIONAL

Printed materials such as books are still used as the main resources in instructional process in formal and non-formal education. Books are also used to disseminate many kinds of information for various purposes. The intellectual advancement of a nation can be measured from its book industry development. The book industry in Indonesia has a low product and can not compete against other countries even in the Southeast Asia. It faces a lot of obstacles in the aspects of manuscript provision, printing, publishing, distributing, and marketing. This article discusses the urgent need of book regulations to develop book industry in Indonesia. It believes that the appropriate book regulations followed by law enforcement will be able to stimulate the book industry development in Indonesia. Many problems concerning the authorship, publishing, printing, distribution, and marketing can be solved with national book regulations.

'Sewing in the Next World': Mary Hays as Dissenting Autodidact in the 1780s*

Mary Hays believed that "in the intellectual advancement of women […] is to be traced the progress of civilization." This essay traces the trajectory of Hays's own "advancement," focusing on Robert Robinson's tutelage from 1781 to her initial encounters with Wollstonecraft. The rational culture of late-eighteenth-century radical Dissent encouraged Hays to venture into the masculine strongholds of Enlightenment understanding, but here, as in the larger world, the "insuperable barriers" of gender obtained. Despite these obstacles, Hays forged an identity as female autodidact in the 1780s, readying herself to embrace Wollstonecraft's "revolution in female manners." Hays's initial contribution was to urge a new cognitive freedom, the recognition that women, too, may aspire to "the emancipated mind [which] is impatient of imposition, nor can it, in a retrogade [sic] course, unlearn what it has learned, or unknow what it has known." Hays's unfinished transition from sheltered puritan to Nonconformist apprentice to ardent feminist provides the missing link in our appreciation of her collaboration with Wollstonecraft and Godwin in the 1790s. I show how Hays was transformed into the obvious candidate for public denunciation as chief living "unsex'd female" in Wollstonecraft's stead.